EARLIEST VOICE RECORDING OF JFK
Boston, Massachusetts (JFK+50) In 2017, Harvard University Archives released "the earliest voice recording" of John F. Kennedy. The recording was made in 1937 for a class in Public Speaking.*
The 1 minute, 28 second recording, restored and made part of an exhibit at the University Archives, was a speech about Hugo Black, U.S. Supreme Court justice appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The speech was originally recorded on a two-sided aluminum disc*. David Ackerman, head of media preservation services at Harvard, said...
"I was really struck by how recognizable (JFK's) voice was, even through the noise."
*The aluminum disc was a phonograph record made of bare aluminum in the late 1920s & 1930s. It was primarily used to record radio broadcast for private transcription. Most aluminum disc records were scrapped for metal during WWII.
**The JFK Presidential Library "holds no recording earlier than a 1940 radio interview."
SOURCE
"Centennial exhibit includes earliest known recording of future president's voice," by Colleen Walsh, The Harvard Gazette, May 9, 2017. www.news.harvard.edu/
